Now, what is this data worth? In terms of money, some of the photos have brought me hundreds of dollars, even though I didn’t ask for a dime. Those using the photos simply wanted to pay me. But, overall, the value of any one photo — or hell, the whole corpus — rounds to $0.

Now, if I had wanted to, I could have reserved all rights to these photos, or granted some to, say, Getty Images, and made money that way. It’s possible I could have made quite a bit, if not a living. For example, I could have sold my photos of ice crystals to NBC for its Winter Olympics in 2011, instead of giving them away. (And maybe I could have gotten some perks out of NBC, perhaps for tickets or a hotel room. But I didn’t do that either.)

What matters to me about my photos is their use value, not their sale value. (A difference Eric S. Raymond unpacks nicely.) This is true of everything we own or rent. Every once in awhile we might toss or sell off stuff that has more sale than use value to us, and in those times we’ll take either nothing or far less than we paid for it in the first place. My point here is that we possess and share stuff almost entirely for its use value. Not because we might be able to sell it as well.

Well, here’s a startup that wants to make this money-for-data transfer a little more explicit — by acting as a platform for consumers to sell their own data directly to companies and make some of that filthy lucre themselves.

But there has always been a market for what salesfolk call “qualified leads.” For a glimpse of that appetite, do this search and see what comes up: https://www.google.com/search?q=qualified+leads. Or go see David Mamet‘s Glengarry Glen Ross.

Why would anybody want to be one of those leads?

The answer is to get better offers, or better deals, whatever those may be. There is no shortage of people who live for this kind of thing. The demographic bulls-eye of this broad cohort stars in TLC’s Extreme Couponing. Pull-quote: “It’s even better than sex.” If that’s you, rock on. If it’s not, read on.

Here’s a simple fact: if you’re exchanging data for money, offers or both, you’re in the qualified leads business — as a lead. This is an old business with a new model: for you. It also respects some rude facts of life in the digital sphere today:

Data about you is being harvested constantly, and in more ways, every day.

You have few ways of controlling that harvesting, other than to plug a few leaks here and there, for example with tracking blockers in browsers.

That data is being sold to marketers who already want to give you more personalized advertising and/or better offers.

You’re already participating in this system, whether you like it or not

Speaking personally, I have little faith that any of these systems will succeed, for three reasons. First is that each company appears to be building its own closed and silo’d marketplace, and I’m not a fan of those. Second is that the actual size of the markets will be too small. Third is that it will gradually dawn on people that use value trumps sales value.

This is especially true in the subscription economy, which includes all ongoing service businesses. This is where the R in VRM will have the most meaning, and find the most opportunity. I also believe it is a vast new greenfield, and relatively free of current marketing manias.

But my mind isn’t closed about it. VRM is a big greenhouse. Let every flower bloom.

Most Americans Confused By Cloud Computing According to National Survey. “For example, 51 percent of respondents, including a majority of Millennials, believe stormy weather can interfere with cloud computing. Nearly one third see the cloud as a thing of the future, yet 97 percent are actually using cloud services today via online shopping, banking, social networking and file sharing. Despite this confusion, three in five (59 percent) believe the “workplace of the future” will exist entirely in the cloud, which indicates people feel it’s time to figure out the cloud or risk being left behind in their professional lives.” By Kim DeCarlis, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Citrix. “Methodological Notes: The Citrix Cloud Survey was conducted by Wakefield Research www.wakefieldresearch.com) among 1,006 nationally representative American adults ages 18 and older, between Aug. 2-7, 2012, using an email invitation and an online survey. Quotas have been set to ensure reliable and accurate representation of the U.S. adult population 18 and older.”

Developments

Meeco. “Welcome to the me-economy! meeco is a new and easy way to manage your life and organise your data. Take control by knowing your value and deciding who you exchange your data with. It’s time to start being rewarded for being you.”

Why Micro-Location iBeacons May Be Apple’s Biggest New Feature For iOS 7. By Michael Wing Kosner in Forbes. Pull-quote “iBeacons is an implementation of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) profile which enables very precise micro-location triggers for events in iOS 7 apps. Already an industry is mobilizing to create hardware and software services to take advantage of these new geofencing capabilities. Estimote, a Polish company with an outpost in Mountain View, California, that just graduated from Y Combinator is about to ship it’s first beacons (3 for $99). It’s co-founder, Jakub Krzych, talks about creating “an OS for the physical world.” And Roximity iBeacons has a $10 a month service for retail locations, while Adomaly claims to be the, “1st Mobile Ad Network to Reach Consumers In-Store @ Shelf,” and sells bundles of 10 beacons for $210.”

It’s 2013. Why are we still in login hell?Doc Searls Weblog. “The sites are the servers, and our browsers are the clients, suckling the servers’ teats for the milk of “content” and cookies to keep track of us. This blows. It has blown for eighteen years. The server side can’t fix it, as long as relationship is entirely their responsibility.”